LOVE

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of love and how love is expressed. At first I saw so many differences and almost a lack of love expressed here in Uganda. This observation was aided by my new friend Ronnie. He is in his late 20s and has never heard the words “I love you” come out of his parents’ mouth. He was never hugged. Never kissed. To this day the only “love” he has experienced has come from his aunt. Pastor Timothy says that all the children of Uganda are orphans. Parents don’t know how to love and care for their children. And if the parents don’t care, then to think that someone else should care or love the child is absurd. Most of the kids at Welcome Home were found in the trash piles, or left on a bus or in the taxi park. Little Adam’s mom left him with some strangers while she went to get them food and then she never came back. She walked away forever. It’s hard to see the love in that.

YET, the more I spend time in this culture the more I hope that I am beginning to understand it. There are incredible exceptions to these observations. And the more I spend time here the more I see what love really is and how much we are all alike. Yes, there are parents who are just wrong. Parents who don’t show love and hurt their children in incredible ways. Those parents are everywhere, not just here in Uganda. Love is expressed differently here at times because the situations facing people here are different. In America, for the most part, we are able to budget and know how many kids we can take care of responsibly. In Africa, you have as many kids as you can with the thought that most will die young due to illness and the more you have the better chance you have of some making it. And if you believe that they aren’t all going to make it, is it any wonder that some struggle with showing affection to their children? It makes sense that they would want to guard themselves from getting too attached in case the child dies. The problem with this mindset is what happens when they all survive? There is no way to support all of the kids and many parents are forced to send some away. I can’t imagine making that decision. Who goes? Who stays? Who will get to go to school? Who will be forced to stay and work in the fields? Is it not more loving to make sure that your child is fed and well cared for versus leaving the child to starve and die? Such sacrifice, such humility to be able to accept that you can’t do it and to get help for the child instead of forcing the child to continue to suffer. LOVE IS NOT PROUD.

People here have a tendency to pass White people on the road and literally offer their child to them. They want a complete stranger to take their child simply because they are white. At first glance that looks ridiculous and downright criminal…yet they know that their child would have more opportunity and better chances in America than where they are now. Isn’t love wanting what is best for another person? At first glance I look at all of the abandoned babies and I get angry. Yet the people who left babies with strangers or on the bus or in a taxi knew that the babies would be found and someone would hopefully do for them what they could not. LOVE DOES NOT ENVY.

Mommy Rose has taught me about sacrificial love. She is the head Mommy at the orphanage. She has 3 children and is putting them all through school. Her husband died shortly after her third child was born. She is a widow. She is a single mom. She is supporting three kids through school. She sees her kids once a year. Transport back to her home village would cost a month and a half’s salary and she can’t afford that. Her kids are raised by her husband’s family. Mommy Rose doesn’t get to see her kids report cards are help them with homework. She doesn’t get to hear about their day or be there to hold them, laugh with them or cry with them. Yet she Loves her children dearly and is willing to sacrifice everything to make sure that they have opportunities to succeed. LOVE IS NOT SELF-SEEKING.

I work with 40 Mommies who prove that it is possible to love children that are not their own. They had to learn how to love, but they have and they do. Jaja Lucy works with the preemies. She is in her early 60s. She was severely beaten by her husband and very near death when she came to work at Welcome Home. Her past could have made her rough and bitter and yet she choose Joy and she holds and rocks those tiny babies with a smile on her face and light in her eyes. LOVE IS KIND.

The toddlers are a handful. They are 40 strong right now and each one is clamoring for someone’s attention. The toddler mommies are incredible. I especially enjoy watching Mommy Irene. She’ll get the kids on the trampoline and then come up like she is going to get them and “eat them” and she tickle them until they squeal…once you do that to one child the others quickly start shouting “Even me. Even me.” So Irene spends time “eating” all the toddlers. I was swinging one of the kids the other day and true to form the other toddlers tried to climb on my lap for their turn. Mommy Irene had them line up and over an hour later, I had swung with every toddler laughing and squealing all the while despite the severe headache and backache that I was left with ;o) LOVE IS PATIENT.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
I am surrounded by people here who are showing this greatest kind of love on a daily basis. Giving up their lives in order that others might get to live theirs. Uganda has its problems but there are many here who have learned how to choose Joy and how to love. And since LOVE NEVER FAILS it gives me great hope for the brothers and sisters here that I have come to know and to love. I pray that I am becoming a woman who LOVES with the GREATEST KIND OF LOVE. I am blessed to be surrounded by such incredible teachers.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.”
1 Cor. 13:13